


odd one out

by flowersforlukey



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforlukey/pseuds/flowersforlukey
Summary: They won, but apart from it all, Thor had been overcome with a strong surge of wrongness.





	odd one out

**Author's Note:**

> _Work contains major spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. Read at your own risk._  
>     
> Once again, Thor is given little to no time to openly regard his brother's death in the movie, and the fact itself has made me frustrated enough to write this one-shot. 
> 
> Apologies if you spot any grammatical errors. I wrote this whilst being emotionally unstable as I have just come straight from the cinema. 
> 
> Enjoy!

They had won.

With once-dormant brains and the conjoined motive to bring back lost souls, they were able to formulate a plan, one that had everyone growing cautious, one that made even the strongest of them step back and _rethink_  its odds before any of them could conclude that actually risking the chance would be worth the shot.

With time-travel they had missions sent to multiple timelines. Their strategies stood strong against the many unfamiliar variables that would have altered the equation and possibly bounding them to failure. One by one, the stones were retrieved. Tony designed a replica of the device Thanos had used to channel their power and wore it during the last of his living minutes on the battlefield.

They had won, they toyed with the many unknowns in the universe and still anticipated victory in the end. Thor had been sent to Asgard to fulfill his mission but was blessed with the opportunity to meet his mother once again, a sorceress who, without actually having to ask, discovered both of the truths and the lies that her son had bottled in himself.

They had won. Thanos was defeated, his army gone as they perished, meeting the similar way of death Thor had been so haunted with after sleepless nights of reliving them in his dreams. As a cost, Tony and Natasha’s lives were traded, but despite their gruesome deaths, the Avengers still  _made_ it.

They won, but apart from it all, Thor had been overcome with a strong surge of wrongness.

He had thought of the billions of lives lost as he drove towards his target on the battlefield. He didn’t, couldn’t—denied himself the chance to think himself as a failed hero avenging the person he cherished most and then lost. When he fought Thanos, his need for vengeance was driven by the universe’s deaths that pained the hearts of many as well as his. So for once, he didn’t think about Loki. Willed himself not to. He wasn’t worthy enough to think about his dead, precious brother. He wasn’t worthy at all. And they _won._

On the evening of Tony’s funeral, the families set out to retiring at last. Their day of grieving the dead ended when faces had grown cold and woeful enough that sparking idle talks to change the atmosphere just didn't work anymore.

Thor walked to the lake, axe in his hand. With an aching chest, he braced himself for travel through the Bifrost.

“Thor,” Steve called, a hand on Thor’s shoulder to hold him back. “Where are you off to now, buddy?”

Even in the dark, Thor’s smile glowed of his lightning, both ablaze and melancholic.

“Home,” he said, eyes drifting towards the stars. He’d only just realized that he now had a home to return to.

…

Back in New Asgard, he passed the throne to the surviving Valkyrie. Entrusting her with the lives of his people meant passing her all those years of training he’d spent as a child and court meetings he endured well enough that his disinterest for Asgardian law was not made obvious for his weary father to address.

Rejecting the throne also meant passing her the trust Odin had imposed in him to rule what would be Asgard in the far future.

It felt cowardly to reject his birthright, his very _responsibility,_ but Asgard needed a real king, and so Thor gave them a new one. It was his first and final gift upon bidding farewell.

Thor flew off with the Guardians. Amidst the galaxies he'd deemed unfamiliar to his knowledge, they ventured across realms, mission to mission, formulating plans and taking on courses of action that resulted in both failure and victory.

This wasn’t the life he dreamed about living, but Thor stayed with his friends because they made him feel like he was _necessary._

Since his successful attempt at defeating the titan, Thor came to a long overdue realization that he could still salvage lives. Perhaps not the lives he wished to save as there wasn’t a single Asgardian salvaged that died before the decimation, but at least here, he was working to prevent potential wars between cosmic worlds, faraway galaxies. At least with this, he could still succeed.

And with the Guardians, Thor didn’t have to feel like a failure.

…

The Milano had been cursing through several jump points that they had to slow down their journey for a week. Thor spent the seventh day rummaging through his belongings he’d retrieved from New Asgard and placing them in a corner where no one would find them.

“Fancy a sandwich?”

Thor looked up to see the raccoon entering his space with two loaves of bread. He took them with silent gratitude despite already having lost his appetite. Indeed, he no longer ate as much as he did before.

“Come on, pal, eat with me while I watch this rubble.”

They strode toward a window that offered them an overhead view of a desolate void they had yet to explore. There was nothing to see but rocks that floated through the space with the lack of a planet’s gravitational pull. It seemed deserted, abandoned. Thor bit off a piece of the bread while Rocket observed the place.

“Familiar, isn’t it?” he asked, now turning to face the Asgardian. “Guess what. This is where we found you, Thor.”

At those words, Thor’s head was overwhelmed with memories of his own experience floating through space, not knowing whether he died or still lived, not having the chance to open his eye and just _search_ through the corpses all because the explosion in the Statesman had reduced him to his greatest weakening.

This place was also where he had last been with his brother.

From just observing Thor’s face, Rocket seemed to read the reminiscence dawning across those eyes. Silently, he understood.

“Bruce shared a very interesting tale before we took off, something about your crazy childhood.” Rocket reached into his satchel and fished out a dagger. “Said it was the closest thing he got to learning your history. Guy wished he just understood you better, you know?"

Thor contemplated at the sight of the weapon.

“This is something we've been wanting to give you.” Rocket offered the dagger with an outstretched hand. “Use it to send him off, Thor. Pay tribute. He’ll be wanting to hear from you.”

Eventually, Thor took the dagger from him, toying it with his hands, testing out its weight. It felt like nothing, didn't sit with him well. Then again, he wasn’t really the one inclined with knives and close combat.

Rocket left the area not long after, allowing Thor to indulge his thoughts in silence. With the sight of the rubble in front of him, Thor clutched the dagger to his chest and silently wept.

He replayed every second spent on the battlefield, despised the very truth that no matter what he tried to do, he cannot seem to alter their recourse where Loki ended up fighting with them to defeat what had destroyed everyone’s souls completely.

Their victory was evident. The people who dusted from the decimation were brought back to the land of the living and they had won, because in the process of doing so, they had successfully killed the titan as well.

But Thor had basked in no victory on the battlefield. He failed in every way to accept the truth that they won when Loki himself had not even been brought back, that his brother’s death remained a constant, leaving Thor a hopeless mess of a supposed hero because he had won but lost everything all the same.

And _nothing_  ever felt right when Loki wasn’t there with him.

The blade of the dagger resembled a familiar glint. Thor studied its edges, growing pleased with their sharpness and their promise of a death so dire. For the very first time in a while, Loki’s face reappeared in his memory, and Thor wished for a tomorrow so serene that he drove the blade into his own chest with a helpless sob.

He killed himself, happily. Thor was no king, no man worthy enough to father a child, and without purpose, he served nothing and no one. The life he would live had he chosen to spare himself would promise only eternal emptiness and regret. Even Thor could no longer feign happiness. He already lost so much.

In this lifetime, Thor understood that Loki could no longer return to him because this time, he had to be the one to return to his brother.

Underneath the great flash of gold, Thor began to make out the outline of a slim figure in the distance. Despite the eerie silence, he was able to pick out a voice so familiar that never once failed to hit home.

“ _Brother, we meet again_.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. Tell me what you think? Kudos and feedback are highly appreciated! Thank you for reading!
> 
> Find me as [@shattered-loki](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shattered-loki) on tumblr to catch more Endgame Thorki fics!


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